This invention relates to devices for removing elastomeric bands from bundles of objects, particularly bundles of postal envelopes.
Sheet-like objects, particularly envelopes, are frequently secured in bundles by elastomeric "rubber bands". Rubber bands are easier to apply manually than bands made of a non-elastic material such as paper. Rubber bands can stretch to accommodate bundles of various shapes and sizes. And, the rubber bands can be re-used after the bundle is broken.
Postal services process large quantities of mail bundles secured by rubber bands. By regulation, certain mailers must provide mail to the U.S. Postal Service in banded bundles to aid automated handling. Bundles are to be secured with rubber bands of certain specified characteristics. Even the positioning of the bands is specified by regulation, although not every mailer conforms to the specifications. Presently, prior to sorting by the Postal Service, the rubber bands are manually removed. The removed bands are collected and returned to the mailers for reuse.
Manually removing the rubber bands is a labor-intensive and tedious job. It would be preferable to remove the bands by machine. But, heretofore, there has been no automated mechanism to nondestructively remove rubber bands from bundles that may vary in size and shape.
Prior devices, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,404,723 of Ohba et al. and 4,553,312 of Mitzel et al. are used for removing paper bands from bundles of currency. Such devices, however, will only work with very uniformly sized and shaped bundles, such as bundles of currency. Thus, the prior devices are not suitable for debanding mail bundles which are not inherently uniform in size, shape, or banding pattern.